Give me your password! What are you hiding? Associated factors of intimate partner violence through technological abuse.

The present study explored the associated factors of intimate partner violence through technological abuse (ITPV) in a sample of 1113 participants aged 18 to 65 (71.3% females). Our research's primary questions were the following: 1). Is there a significant link between relationship attachment styles and ITPV perpetration or victimization?; 2). Is there a significant link between participants' demographic and relationship characteristics (i.e., relationship length and partners' fidelity), online behavior (i.e., benign and toxic disinhibition), moral disengagement, psychological distress), and ITPV perpetration or victimization?; and 3). Did the COVID-19 pandemic increase ITPV perpetration or victimization?. We analyzed our data by creating three different groups, depending on participants' answers concerning ITPV, i.e., the overall sample, abusers' and victims' groups. Our main results suggested significant, positive correlations between ITPV perpetration and victimization, moral disengagement, psychological distress, and online disinhibition. Age negatively correlated with IPVT victimization and perpetration. We also found significant associations between participants' dominant relationship attachment style and their own and partners' cheating behavior, as well as ITPV-victimization and perpetration. Finally, 13.7% to 23% of participants in all three groups considered that the Covid-19 increased the frequency of ITPV behaviors (for both abusers and victims). Results are discussed considering their theoretical and practical implications for domestic violence and the potential related prevention and intervention strategies.

Emotional contagion as a trigger for moral disengagement: Their effects on workplace injuries

The purpose of this study was to empirically test the proposition that contagion of emotions triggers moral disengagement and subsequent increases in work-related injuries. Using emotional contagion and social cognitive theories, we tested the proposition that higher contagion of anger (i.e., a negative emotion that interferes with mental functioning and enables inappropriate behavior) would trigger moral justifications for safety violations, whereas higher contagion of joy (i.e., a positive emotion accompanied by an optimal operating condition and constructive activity) would prevent safety-related moral disengagement. In turn, moral disengagement was predicted to be related to higher rates of subsequent workplace injuries. Using a cross-country and multi-method (i.e., cross-lagged, cross-sectional) design, data from 503 employees in the U.S. (two-wave) and 538 employees in Italy (cross-sectional) supported the hypothesized mediation model. Specifically, both in the U.S. and Italy, emotional contagion of anger positively predicted moral disengagement, whereas emotional contagion of joy negatively predicted moral disengagement. Furthermore, moral disengagement positively predicted experienced injuries and partially mediated the relationship between contagion of joy/anger and injuries. These findings suggest that moral justifications of safety violations, and related injuries, may be prevented by exchanges of positive emotions (and triggered by exchanges of negative emotions) that employees absorb during social interactions at work. Theoretical and practical implications for organizational ethics are discussed in light of the globally increasing emotional pressure and concerns for a safe and psychologically healthy environment in today's workplace, particularly given the recent pandemic spread of Coronavirus disease (CoVid-19). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Ethical decisions during COVID-19: level of moral disengagement and national pride as mediators

COVID-19 created a global crisis of unprecedented comprehensiveness affecting personal and professional lives of individuals worldwide. The pandemic and various governmental guidelines associated with it had numerous consequences for the workplace and the marketplace. In light of the global nature and multiplicity of the consequences of the pandemic, this study examines the impact of individual characteristics of respondents from three countries from various areas of the world: China, Israel, and the USA toward COVID-19 related business ethics decisions in three different spheres: human resources, marketing, and social responsibility. Data from 374 respondents in these three countries indicated that moral disengagement was negatively related to all of the ethical decisions presented, with national pride moderating the above. Possible implications of these findings and future research directions are presented.

How do compulsory citizenship behaviors affect moral disengagement in organizations? Significance of anger toward the organization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: With the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals, especially nurses, are confronted with an intensified workload. The literature on compulsory citizenship behaviors and their consequences is still far from explaining the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that underlie this relationship. Methods: Drawing on the resource depletion theory, we unpack the mechanism by which compulsory citizenship behaviors influence moral disengagement with the mediation effects of anger toward the organization. We are reporting a cross-sectional survey of nurses (n = 294) in private and public hospitals in Istanbul, Turkey. The data analysis involved structural equation modeling and Bayesian mediation. Results: The study revealed that compulsory citizenship behaviors positively influenced anger toward the organization and moral disengagement. Further, anger toward the organization mediates the link between compulsory citizenship behaviors and moral disengagement. Likewise, the Bayesian mediation analysis indicated that the proportion mediated (PM), which ensures a prediction of the extent to which the pathway explains the total effect through the mediation effect, was 33.74%. Conclusion: The findings show that exposure to compulsory citizenship behaviors lead to negative emotional (anger toward to organization) and cognitive (moral disengagement) consequences in nurses. Practical implications: Hospital managers should not force nurses to display discretionary work tasks outside their job descriptions. Providing an organizational milieu where voluntarily extra-role behaviors are encouraged may help reduce nurses' moral disengagement and, in turn, ease their anger toward the organization.

Plant power

The climate crisis, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, are contributing to a shift in what people eat. For environmental sustainability, ethical, social justice, and health reasons, people are embracing plant-based diets, which involve consuming mostly fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans and little or no meat and dairy products. Drawing on insights from consumer psychology, this review synthesizes academic research at the intersection of food and consumer values to propose a framework for understanding how and why these values-Sustainability, Ethics, Equity, and Dining for health-are transforming what people eat. We term our model the SEED framework. We build this framework around a report assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation (2021) that describes how to grow a value-based societal food system. Finally, we highlight insights from consumer psychology that promote an understanding of how consumer values are shifting people's diets and raise research questions to encourage more consumer psychologists to investigate how and why values influence what consumers eat, which in turn impacts the well-being of people, our environment, and society.

Conspiracy beliefs, regulatory self-efficacy and compliance with COVID-19 health-related behaviors: The mediating role of moral disengagement.

Although recent studies on the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have highlighted the negative effects of moral disengagement on intentions to comply with COVID-19 containment measures, little is known about the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between regulatory self-efficacy in complying with the containment measures, beliefs in conspiracy theories and compliance with COVID-19 health-related behaviors. Data were collected from 1164 young adults (women, N = 796; 68.4%; mean age 25.60 ± 4.40 years) who completed an online survey from 15th May to 22nd June 2021. Results of the multi-group path analyses indicated that higher beliefs in conspiracy theories were associated with lower compliance with COVID-19 health-related behaviors, whereas higher self-efficacy beliefs in complying with the containment measures were associated with higher compliance with COVID-19 health-related behaviors. Moral disengagement significantly mediated the associations between beliefs in conspiracy theories, regulatory self-efficacy, and compliance with COVID-19 health-related behaviors. Finally, the tested model was gender-invariant. Findings suggest that public health authorities and social care professionals should promote interventions aimed at improving regulatory self-efficacy, emphasizing the moral significance of respecting or ignoring the recommended COVID-19 measures (e.g., physical distance in public), and enhancing people's concern for the potential harms of their immoral actions.

Exploring the Moral Challenges of Confronting High-Carbon-Emitting Behavior: The Role of Emotions and Media Coverage

In this article, we address the climate crisis as a moral issue and discuss the relevant moral and emotional processes and the role of the media underlying the motivations of individuals to behave in a less carbon-emitting manner. We provide theoretical insights from social psychology and emotion research and empirical data based on an online survey from Germany (N = 979). In the theoretical part, we outline the role of emotions in influencing carbon-related behavior, with a particular focus on self-condemning (e.g., guilt or shame), self-praising (e.g., pride), or other-suffering emotions (e.g., empathy). We further summarize the reasons for the low influence of the media on carbon-related behavior compared to the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical results confirm that participants reported other- suffering and self-condemning emotions in response to news content and rated their likelihood of personal behavior change as high when confronted with news about the climate crisis on a daily basis, as has been widely the case during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the media is responsible for regularly reporting on the victims of the climate crisis in order to generalize self-condemning and other-suffering emotions into affective attitudes. Opinion leaders can function as role models for low-carbon behavior. © 2022, MDPI. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 moral disengagement and prevention behaviors: The impact of perceived workplace COVID-19 safety climate and employee job insecurity.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed recommendations for individual COVID-19 prevention behaviors, as well as guidance for the safe reopening of businesses. Drawing from previous research on occupational safety, business ethics, and economic stressors, we tested the hypothesis that more positive perceptions of the workplace COVID-19 safety climate would be associated with lower employee COVID-19 related moral disengagement. In turn, we predicted that higher COVID-19 moral disengagement would be associated with lower enactment of preventive behaviors both at work and in nonwork settings (i.e., a spillover effect). Further, we investigated whether employee job insecurity would impact organizational socialization processes, such that the relationship between the perceived COVID-19 safety climate and moral disengagement would be weaker at higher levels of job insecurity. By analyzing a three-wave lagged dataset of U.S. employees working on-site during the pandemic using a Bayesian multilevel framework, we found empirical support for the hypothesized moderated mediation model. We discuss the relevance of these findings (i.e., the spillover effect and the role of job insecurity) in light of the extant safety climate literature and outline how our findings have several implications for the scope and conceptualization of safety climate in light of the surge of new working arrangements, infectious diseases, and continuing employment instability.

COVID-19 social distancing compliance mechanisms: UK evidence.

Non-compliance with social distancing (SD) measures clearly has negative effects on both public health and post-pandemic economic recovery. However, little is as yet known about people's views on and factors influencing their behavioral intentions toward SD measures. This study draws on moral disengagement theory and the norm-activation model to investigate mechanisms that promote or hinder compliance with SD measures. A longitudinal research approach was adopted to compare changes in the main factors over three periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in England (UK). The results reveal significant differences between the three periods regarding intentions to comply with SD measures, altruistic value, moral obligation and moral disengagement, with no significant change in ascription of responsibility. Residents showed the strongest intentions to comply with SD measures during the first national lockdown, with the highest moral obligation and lowest moral disengagement levels, compared with the lowest intention to comply during the first re-opening period. Altruistic value is important in promoting moral obligation and compliance with SD measures, whereas the predictive powers of ascription of responsibility and moral disengagement were weaker than expected. These findings offer guidance to policymakers and researchers in developing more effective policies and public communication strategies. The results suggest that communication is key to normalizing SD compliance, which can be achieved most effectively by fostering residents' altruistic value and moral considerations. Particular attention must be paid to re-opening periods between lockdowns, with clear messages to remind residents of prosocial aspects of SD compliance and public health. In addition to appropriate communication and education, technologies such as apps, QR codes and contactless shopping settings may also be used to facilitate compliance with SD measures.

Job Insecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic on Counterproductive Work Behavior of Millennials: A Time-Lagged Mediated and Moderated Model.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the market environment for the information technology (IT) industry changed dramatically, presenting companies with numerous obstacles in day-to-day management activities and changing business needs. Previous studies found that job insecurity due to COVID-19 significantly impacted millennials. Our research explored the effect of job insecurity on counterproductive work behavior among millennial employees during the COVID-19 period, using moral disengagement as a mediating variable, and psychological capital and negative emotions as moderating variables. In this study, 298 employees working in Chinese IT companies completed the questionnaire survey. We collected data from employees over three different time intervals (baseline, three weeks later, and six weeks later) to mitigate the issues of common method bias and single-source data. We analyzed the collected data using SPSS25.0 and Amos24.0 for structural modeling. Our research results indicate that job insecurity is positively associated with counterproductive work behavior, and moral disengagement plays a mediating role. In addition, psychological capital moderates the relationship between job insecurity, moral disengagement, and counterproductive work behavior. Negative emotions also moderate the mediating effect of moral disengagement between job insecurity and CWB.

Moral disengagement, locus of control, and belief in a just world: Individual differences relate to adherence to COVID-19 guidelines.

We examined relationships between moral disengagement, locus of control, and just world beliefs and adherence to COVID-19 containment measures. We predicted that these individual differences would be more influential for adherence than beliefs about the pandemic (e.g., its origins and one's perceived susceptibility to infection). COVID-19-related measures of these three individual differences were each significantly associated with adherence even after controlling for demographics and pandemic beliefs although beliefs about the severity of the virus and the benefits of containment measures also significantly related to adherence. Beliefs were associated with the individual difference measures and political orientation. Moral disengagement, the strongest individual difference predictor, was associated with lower support for each pandemic containment precaution (e.g., mask wearing). These results can be used to frame messages to increase adherence to public health measures.

Across the COVID-19 Waves; Assessing Temporal Fluctuations in Perceived Stress, Post-Traumatic Symptoms, Worry, Anxiety and Civic Moral Disengagement over One Year of Pandemic.

This study aimed at investigating the psychological effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy by analysing the trends of perceived stress, post-traumatic symptoms, state anxiety, worry, and civic moral disengagement in four different moments from March 2020 to March 2021. The study involved a total of 1827 Italian participants (30% men and 70% women; Mage = 34.72; SD = 12.40) divided into four groups to which an online survey was administered. The first group completed the survey in March 2020, the second one in August 2020, the third one in November 2020, and the fourth one in March 2021. Results highlighted significant decreases in post-traumatic symptoms and a significant increase in civic moral disengagement over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The levels of perceived stress, worry, and state anxiety remained constant. The correlations between the variables at different times were also explored, as well as gender differences over the year. The COVID-19 emergency has had significant effects on the mental state of the population, with important repercussions for individual and collective well-being during but probably also after the pandemic. This study offers a clear snapshot of the psychological outcomes over one COVID-19 pandemic year, providing important information that may contribute to tailor more effective interventions for mental health.

Beyond the Pale: Dark Traits and Close Relations Influence Attitudes toward COVID-19 and the Rejection of Quarantine Rules.

Dark personality traits are predictors of detrimental behavior (e.g., selfishness or violating norms). This research examined the influence dark personality traits on attitudes toward the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine rules. We determined whether specific dark traits could predict non-compliance, beyond the global measure of dark personality traits. Additionally, previous research suggests that people are more likely to violate rules for the benefits of close relations, rather than for their own self-interests. We examined how this tendency interacts with dark traits. The 823 participants in the study completed measures of the dark triad, moral disengagement, and attitudes toward COVID-19 rules, and responded to vignettes about themselves or close relations escaping quarantine. Using a bifactor model approach, results showed that a general dark factor predicted non-compliance to COVID-19 rules, but that some moral disengagement mechanisms contributed to non-compliance beyond this factor. Vignette results showed that participants were more willing to break quarantine rules for a close relation than for themselves, except for those high in moral disengagement, who broke rules more-regardless of who was involved. These findings have important implications for intervention programs and policies, since individuals with dark traits tend to "selfishly" trespass norms, but anyone can "go beyond the pale, i.e., go outside the limits of acceptable behavior, for a loved one.

The Relationship Between Fear of COVID-19 and Online Aggressive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, fear has run rampant across the globe. To curb the spread of the virus, several governments have taken measures to drastically transition businesses, work, and schooling to virtual settings. While such transitions are warranted and well-intended, these measures may come with unforeseen consequences. Namely, one's fear of COVID-19 may more readily manifest as aggressive behaviors in an otherwise incognito virtual social ecology. In the current research, a moderated mediation model examined the mechanisms underlying the relation between fear of COVID-19 and overt and relational aggressive online behavior among Chinese college students. Utilizing a large sample of Chinese college students (N = 2,799), results indicated that moral disengagement mediated the effect of fear of COVID-19 on college students' overt and relational online aggressive behavior. A positive family cohesion buffered the effect of moral disengagement on relational aggressive behavior, but only for females. The findings, theoretical contributions, and practical implications of the present paper are also discussed.

Moral Disengagement and Generalized Social Trust as Mediators and Moderators of Rule-Respecting Behaviors During the COVID-19 Outbreak.

In this study, we tested a theoretical model with moral disengagement, a mediator, and generalized social trust (GST), a mediator and a moderator of the relationship between personality traits and rule-respecting behaviors (i.e., social distancing and stay-at-home), during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in Italy. The data were collected on 1520 participants (61% males). General results are threefold: (1) moral disengagement mediated the relationship between emotional stability, narcissism, psychopathy, and social distancing; (2) among components of GST, trust in Government mediated the relationship between psychopathy and social distancing; trust in known others mediated the relationship between emotional stability, agreeableness, and Machiavellianism with total number of exits; trust in unknown others mediated the relationship of emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and psychopathy with average daily number of exits; (3) GST moderated the indirect effect of personality traits on rule-respecting behaviors through moral disengagement. The theoretical and practical importance of these results is discussed.